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The Unjust War Between Christianity and Homosexuality

You wake up to see your social media news feed filled with posts about Duck Dynasty or videos of a mob of feminist women attempting to vandalize a Catholic church in South America. You see Christians quick crying “persecution!” A few “out-there” folks are even telling us it’s (surprise, yet again) a sign of the imminent apocalypse.

You scour the other side of the internet and see equitable posts and blogs showing priests throwing rocks at gay rights activists in Georgia and the firing of gays by conservative organizations, with just as many emotional shouts of “inequality!”

Something is wrong.

In this post-Christmas season, as we contemplate the peace that we say Jesus brought, we can see far too many grotesque examples of the antithesis to peace, violence and strife. Cue the cheesy music and I can give a nicely decorated speech about how we are all nice people who need to get along a little better and sing kumbaya.

Not gonna happen, instead here is the reality: many of us are self-loving bigots and “other”phobes. Yes, both Christians and the gays are guilty, so is every other group, club, minority, and majority.

The Bitter Facts

Most of us hate inequality and injustice. That should be a good thing, except we all use our own filters and preconceptions to decide what is inequality and injustice. And sometimes (and by that I mean most of the time) we only consider injustice/inequality/persecution as something that can be committed against our type of people, and our insider club. We don’t care if it happens to those who are on the other side.

Are there many hardcore atheists out there pointing out some kind of media bias or inequality against a Christian?

Is there a huge line of hardcore Baptists waiting to defend the equality of an atheist who wants to put an atheist monument on a court house?

Did it just get quiet here?

FACT 1: A huge (and partly naked) mob of pro-gay “feminist” protesters in Argentina surrounded a Catholic church that was being defended by a line of Catholic men. These women sneered, scorned, yelled, imitated lewd actions, and even spray painted some of the men. (1, 2, 3, 4)

RESPONSE 1: The liberal, gay, and feminist media passed over this story, as though this ugly thing didn’t even happen. The Christian newsmedia, blogosphere, and social media posted it everywhere, many in my social feed claiming persecution.

RESPONSE 2: The liberal, pro-gay, and pro-feminist blogosphere made sure to hit this story, to show the horrible injustice. The Christian blogosphere and social media was quiet and largely ignored this, no one was claiming persecution.

FACT 3: Christian pastor Saeed Abedini is unjustly jailed in the Muslim country of Iran, for his Christian faith. (9)

RESPONSE 3: Christians care, petition the government, pray, and most importantly send a bazillion chain messages. The other side is largely quiet and unconcerned

FACT 4: Hundreds of homosexuals have been executed by Iran, and Iran’s leaders openly advocate torture or hanging for homosexuality. (10)

RESPONSE 4: Pro-gay advocates care, petition the government, and donate money to stop this. The Christian side is largely quiet and unconcerned.

The Bitter Truth

Some of this talk about fairness, justice, equality, freedom of speech, freedom from persecution is often just fluff. It’s something we say when “our” side is getting hammered. The bitter truth is we don’t say these types of things when we see our opponents driven to their knees.

In fact, in my personal experience, I have heard plenty of fundamentalist Christians utter pretty ugly things about other people who embrace other worldviews. I have personally had Christian people tell me they want the gays to die or be hanged. I once organized a rally to reject the precursor to gay marriage, and spent most of my time calming down some of my fellow protesters from saying horrid, violent, and angry things, (the rest of the time calming down a few gay counterprotesters). I listened to a sermon on Youtube where the Bible-thumping pastor stated all the gays should be put on an island where they can die off. In fact, about ten years ago, I used to make that island joke myself, and I’m pretty sure it involved nuclear weapons.

I’m also certain I’d hear the same types of things against Christians from the radicals on the other side as well, had I many friends there. If not through personal experience, then one can find that social media has plenty of examples of hatred against conservative evangelicals and right leaning Christians as well.

Where the US pledge of allegiance declares “equality and justice for all” some opponents of conservative Christianity want to replace that with “all who are on my side.” Where Jesus says “pray for your enemies” some Christians want to replace “for my friends only” (and the cleverest amongst us simply pray imprecatory prayers for their enemies).

The Bitter Pill We Need To Swallow

So here we are, gridlocked in a war where people only care about their own side. We use words like justice, fairness, equality, but we don’t care if the other side gets those things. We only care about our justice, fairness, and equality.

The only true way to stand for all these grand values, is to ensure that even your opponents are privy to them. The only true fairness is when you let your opponents have what is fairly theirs, even if it hurts you. The only true equality is when you admit your opponents are equally valuable. The only true justice is when justice is not unfairly slanted in your favor.

So what is the answer to the rampant unfairness and injustice? The wise words of Jesus which teach all of us kindness, love, and some form of equality for all, even for those you don’t like. If God sends sun & rain (in a farming civilization this is equitable to life itself) on both the just and unjust, perhaps we should grieve for all suffering, not only against those we like.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?

Are not even the [corrupt] tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?”

(Matthew 5:43-49)

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7 responses

He said pray for your enemies not embrace the sin that they are in. The battle is between what God said and the people who openly choose to disobey him then ask The Church for full acceptance. If all who commit fornication form an alliance against The Church for acceptance then just as with homosexuality the gift God has given married people ONLY continues to be perverted not by the world but The Church. Before I came to Christ and committed fornication I was not proud of what I did and did not look to assemble with other so called believers and ask for The Church to fully accept us due to the fact that we would CONINUE committing fornication and nothing is wrong with it, in the Church!?? Sexual Immorality is a dangerous thing, all of it not just homosexuality, but if The Church does not fight that sin/demonic spirit then how are we the salt of the earth if anything goes. He said love your enemies and bless them that curse you, don’t hate them but hate the sin, which is the transgression of the law never once does the book(Bible) say to allow sin to take dominion and by the way
Matthew 5:10
New International Version (NIV)
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Good stuff. “We only care about our justice, fairness, and equality.” Couldn’t agree more. Its pathetic how passionate we are to defend our rights yet lack the humility to allow the same treatment for those against us. Very well written.

Just as a thought. If you want to build a bridge between liberals and conservatives, shouldn’t both sides have strong valid points on both ends? Otherwise it would be pointless to build a bridge to a side that doesn’t have anything? Or do we need to create centralized non-biased media? (not sure how that would look like)

Even thought this is off the topic of what this post is really about I am curious to hear what your approach is to making a positive impact on the general moral decay of America. (Or maybe there isn’t any moral decay?) Should we continue to fight for whatever our side of the rights are or allow for the other one sided news-media, blogosphere, social media to take over?

I would love to get to know you better. Your articles are inspiring, and accurate. Please write to me and share more of about you. Where are you from or where you live, your denominational or worship group, and how you have become so knowledgeable. Everyone should listen more to what you say, it seems inspired.

And no, I am not a crackpot, but I sometimes feel like a loner in this world of religion.

We should all love sin? Brother we were called to love the person and hate the sin. We were called to rebuke when someone is wrong. We all know that homosexuality is wrong, and while homosexuals deserve to have equality, sexual preference should never be a designated protection act, nor should it define marriage between a man and a man or a woman and a woman. That is not only Satanic thinking, its false preaching. While you write a lot of fluff, I see very little help for the Christian who needs to know where God stands on these issues. I stamp false prophet and the majority of your articles. I have read a couple of your other articles, and find them in the same category. I cannot believe a “Christian” would denounce God as the creator, and decry the stupidity of believing in Darwinism and evolution. Do you realize what you have just said? Your ignorance to the bible helped you latch on to the secular held beliefs, and you are not getting a round of applause from the heavens, and seriously doubt the Amens will roll in from God either. You don’t understand creationism, because you were too busy reading the secular books instead of understanding the one that God gave you to read. You basically said, the bible is not written by God, and he did not create the world. It is no wonder you are just as confused on the other issues. Satan is doing a happy dance, and you have just pushed yourself over to the “I was deceived by the AntiChrist” Side. APOSTASY is what we call that. I encourage you to read and study your bible, and stop preaching false messages.

That’s interesting, because Christ said to do the opposite. He said “love the sinner, and hate your own sin, and only after you free your own life from sin will you be able to clearly see the sin of others.” This is paraphrased, but it comes from Christ talking about logs and splinters in Matthew 7:5.